


lost with no direction

by Lire_Casander



Category: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Mentions of addiction, Mentions of homophobia, mentions of depression, mentions of suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24269107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: tk has always lived under the long shadow cast by his father’s heroic acts
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	lost with no direction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brilliantbanshee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilliantbanshee/gifts).



> Prompt: **'d be interested to see your take on TK's interactions with the fire station team in NY. From what we see I get the feeling it was a lot different from the 126.  
> **  
>  Please heed the warnings.
> 
> Title comes from _The Climb_ by Miley Cyrus.
> 
> Beta'ed by the always amazing [meloingly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meloingly). Thanks a lot for your help with this!

He’s just turned eighteen when he first steps into the Fire Academy for his mandatory eighteen weeks of training and learning. He thinks itʼs premonitory, that heʼs eighteen and the course lasts as many weeks. 

He’s always believed in fate. 

He’s been waiting his whole life for the moment he sets foot on the steps that lead to the main building at the Academy — or at least since he can remember. His father has proof of his obsession with putting out fires in the form of a faded picture of a seven-year-old TK wearing a red shirt twice his size with his fatherʼs helmet on top. He’s ready for this. 

Nothing could have ever prepared him for the Fire Academy. 

Growing up, TK had always looked up at his father, always wanting to become a younger version of his hero. Just like any other child, he lived for the approving smile of his father or the sweet caress of his mother whenever he did something right. However, growing up, TK had had the notion that his father wasnʼt only _his_ hero — he was a nation-wide recognized hero for the whole of America and most of the world. Growing up, TK had realized he would have to share his father with everyone else, because thatʼs who his father is — someone who saves lives, who puts his own existence into danger to ensure no one dies on his watch. Growing up, TK had learned that his last name was a source of pride, and heʼd dreamed to honor it once he was adult enough to make his own decisions. 

The Academy proves to him that wanting to become a hero and actually living up to the dream are two very different things. 

He’s never realized just how much weight his fatherʼs name held throughout New York. Anytime heʼs called out for something — be it to answer a particularly difficult question at class, be it to start a new round of drills — there’s a reverent silence following the sharp _Strand_ at which he stands up. There’s so much more than respect in the way the instructors say the word, much more than jealousy in the looks he receives as he perks up after his fatherʼs name. 

Owen Strand is a lone survivor, someone who watched as the devil took his found family and dragged them to hell as the towers collapsed on so many interrupted dreams, someone who lived through the searing pain of witnessing horrors worth a lifetime of nightmares and is still able to step up in front of the fear and fight it. 

TK thinks itʼs his legacy to live up to the expectations everyone has set on him. 

The Academy is tougher than he thought, and the fact that he hasnʼt been able to connect with anyone in his promotion is something hard for him to bear. TK has always been a really extroverted kid, but during his teenage years he learned how to keep things to himself; his parents had been supportive when he came out to them, but he found himself alone when the ones he thought were his truest friends gave him the cold shoulder after they found out.. He’s got really good at hiding his emotions, burying them in a well deep inside his soul where not even he himself can reach them easily. He carries the burden of his insecurities into the weeks spent among fake fires and written exams. When the time comes for him to become a real firefighter — first in his promotion, making his father proud as he sees Owen sitting in the front row — TK has learned how to fight heat and flames, but he has yet to tame the savage feeling gnawing at his insides when everyone greets his father, after everything is said and done, and congratulate _Owen_ on a job well done raising his son up. As though TKʼs success at the Academy isn’t his to brag about; as though he isn’t his own person but an extension of who Owen should have been, had his station survived the terror of 9/11.

He asks for a station as far from the 252 as possible at the same time as he begins his search of an apartment suitable for a bachelor like him, a place he can afford with his firefighter salary in the pricey city, somewhere to call _his_ without the intervention of his father. 

At first, his life at Station 67 is peaceful — or as peaceful as the life of firefighters and EMTs can be — but he still can’t shake the weight of being Owen Strandʼs only son. Sometimes it feels like heʼs living in some sort of fantasy reality where he is the Chosen One, designated to fulfill a prophecy he has yet to decipher. TK works with his team in huge fires and small cat rescues, laughing it off when heʼs teased for being the newbie, shrugging when someone makes an offhand comment about his father. 

He never feels at ease enough to actually tell his new crew that he isn’t as straight as they seem to think he is. He never contradicts their words when they try to set him up on a date with their cousin or their niece or their sister or their neighborʼs best friend. He simply smiles and tells them that heʼs already taken. 

Itʼs easier than going through the pain of being seen as a failure — heʼs meant to do great things, heʼs meant to help grow the Strandʼs lineage. Plus, heʼs heard some of the crew members speaking about how _wrong_ it would be for them to share intimate spaces such as showers and bunks with someone who plays for the other team — how uncomfortable they would feel. No one ever questions how itʼd be for gays to hear those words, to be considered unable to control themselves around other men. No one ever stops to think whether or not there might be someone hurt by their speech. 

TK finds himself buried deep in a closet he left when he turned sixteen, once again scared that his worth would be soiled by the knowledge that he isn’t up to what everyone thinks a true Strand man should be. 

His father doesn’t really know about how he feels — they never talk about emotions whenever they gather together for dinner, and they definitely do _not_ overshare when Gwenyth is around — so TK is all alone with his dark thoughts for way longer than he would have wanted. And then he’s trapped in the middle of an accident and his whole life collapses around him.

They have been helping out at a car accident site. TK has been running in circles, providing everything his Captain asks him to because he’s just the probie in this station. It’s such a horrible wreckage that most of Brooklyn’s stations have been called, and TK can see his father commanding some other firefighters. He understands that maybe this is his moment to shine, maybe this is the time his father actually sees the _firefighter_ TK has become instead of the little child Owen seems so intent in believing TK still is. That’s why TK takes one step too close to the wires still live, sending sparks all around. That’s why he disregards a direct order from his Captain. That’s why he lunges himself into the task of saving the kid in the back seat of the car which is currently balancing over the top of a hill.

“Strand!” he can hear his Captain calling him. “Take a step back! Come back here!”

And then there’s his father’s voice, scared but hard, “TK!”

He doesn’t listen to either of them, and he doesn’t hear the chorus of strained voices that call for him to come back, to not go any further.

The car tips forward at the same time as TK slides underneath the vehicle from a faltering step. He yelps when one of the tires catches his jacket as he falls to the ground, and as much as he reaches out to grasp for an anchor, he feels himself being dragged through the mud and the dirt until he’s hanging for dear life from a small branch strategically and miraculously protruding from the ground. There’s a searing pain coursing through his body, starting at his left leg and ending at the tips of his fingers.

He doesn’t remember much about his own rescue — about the shouts and the recriminations, about his father’s eyes scrutinizing every inch of his body searching for more damage than the apparent. His mind doesn’t register the way the EMTs check on him, but his eyes catch on the frightened gaze Serrano and Gordie share over his body splayed on the gurney, and everything comes crashing down onto him like waves attacking a wild shore.

The pain is so unbearable, it feels like he’s breaking in half. He doesn’t dare to look down his body — he wouldn’t have been able to, Gordie is already restraining him to the gurney so he doesn’t writhe and hinder their job. He closes his eyes for a second, and when he opens them up again, his father is hovering over them, barking out orders as he grabs his hand and walks along with the gurney inside the ambulance. Everything comes crashing down in the few seconds between the gurney rolling close to the vehicle and the moment it’s lifted into the ambulance.

He’s dying. He voices so much — as clearly as he can with a withering voice and a consciousness fading in and out.

“You’re not dying, not on my watch,” his father promises, and TK wants to believe him, he really does, but his father’s words have been nothing but empty vows, devoid of meaning, ever since he’d promised TK that he’d be there for his eighth birthday but Owen had been too busy saving everyone else and getting lost in the midst of grief to actually _be_ with his son.

“Love you, Dad,” he whispers before Serrano hits the ball on the IV and the morphine kicks into his system.

Suddenly, every inch of pain soothes and he feels like he’s flying — every single dark thought and self-deprecating feeling disappears in swirls of colorful ribbons untying from his soul and dissolving in thin air. Nothing hurts anymore, there’s not even an ounce of regret in his bones. 

He’s free.

He survives, because of course his fate is to live long enough to be reminded of his own stupidity by his Captain at the 67, but he passes his psychological tests with flying colors and he’s discharged after a month of medical leave, so he comes back to work with a new set of scars on his skin and a new secret to add to the pile of boxes he keeps in the back of his mind.

TK manages to snatch some oxy when his prescription runs out of ink. He finds a secluded corner, an abandoned alley, a ruined building in the shadiest part of town, but he’s always supplied with the drugs he needs to silence the voice inside telling him he’s never going to be enough, to deafen the noise that threatens to drown him before he suffocates in his own breathless existence.

One night, he needs more. He keeps needing more and more each day, upscaling the doses until he’s drugged up to the galls every day, during every shift, his laser focus faltering even at the most inane tasks. So that night, TK opens the orange bottle he’s hiding in the medical kit on his bathroom, away from prying eyes, and he drops pill after pill in his hand, shoving them into his mouth and swallowing in dry movements. He knows it will take a moment for the drugs to sink in, so he moves to the couch and slumps onto it, his nape against the headrest as he closes his eyes, waiting for the high to kick in, for the waves of pleasure and numbness to take over him.

Darkness claims him.

The next thing he knows, he’s waking up smelling antiseptic, lying on an uncomfortable bed and with the worst headache of his life. He groans, turning to his side only to meet his father’s eyes, full of worry and doubts.

“Dad?” he asks, confused. “What happened? I—I don’t remember anything.”

But just as the words come out of his mouth, memories of what happened — last night, the night before last, a night a month ago? — rush back to him and the physical pain he feels whenever he isn’t drugged pairs up with the knowledge that he’s overused his luck by a long stretch.

“How long, TK?” his father whispers, but it resounds in the empty space like a yell. “How long have you been—how long?”

He sighs. He’s known someday his secret would be in the open — one day he’d have to face his demons, because he’d fail at work or he’d be too distracted or he’d crave a high too bad — but he hadn’t thought for a second that his father would find out because he’d _fucking_ overdosed.

“I—I’m sorry, Dad,” he mutters. He’s drained of all fight in his bones, but he can’t face whatever he’s watching unfurl in his father’s soul, so he looks away. “I didn’t mean for it to go so far. I just—I thought I could control it.”

“You never control an addiction, Tyler Kennedy,” his father tells him sternly. “The drugs control you. I thought you were stronger than that.”

TK wants to scream at him, to tell his father all the reasons why he couldn’t stop using, how the drugs helped him forget his shitty existence and how nobody seems to care about who _TK Strand_ is, instead focusing on who a _Strand man_ should be. TK wants his father to understand the damage his absence has done to him, wants his father to acknowledge that choosing his firefighting family over his real family had left an imprint in the soul of a seven-year-old kid who couldn’t have understood that it wasn’t his fault his dad was away — that it wasn’t his fault that his parents divorced.

But he doesn’t say anything. He feels so weak, so detached from everything real, that he simply allows his father to take over, rambling about how he isn’t going to let TK out of sight ever again, how he’s going to help TK through the twelve steps of recovery, how he’s signing TK up to a program and therapy, how he’s going to be there for TK after it’s made pretty obvious he’s failed as a father.

TK can only hear _me me me_ in his father’s speech, but since he stops listening somewhere around the middle, he couldn’t care less.

And then starts the second part of his life — the first one a hazy memory in the rearview mirror of the journey his father has planned for them — a part where he’s under the hawk-like watch of one relentless Owen Strand who exerts his fatherly right to control everything in TK’s life when he had never done that before, even when TK was a child. At twenty-one, TK has to relearn what it is to have an overbearing father who also happens to be his new Captain. While he was in recovery, his father had filed for a transfer on his behalf, and he’d pulled all the _Owen Strand Hero_ cards until he managed to secure a spot for TK in his own crew at the 252.

The first shift he shares with his new team, TK understands that hell wasn’t being in the closet around some bigots who worshipped his father. Hell is working under his father’s orders at a station where everyone knows everything about him and his life, about all of his decisions — good and bad — and they accept him not for who he is — Tyler Kennedy Strand, firefighter — but for who he can make them be close to — Owen Strand, renowned NYC hero.

He never shares his personal life with them. No one seems ever interested in what he has to offer as TK Strand. No one ever asks or wonders how his weekend has been or why he still lives with his father. Everyone seems to know about his failure as both a firefighter and a human being, and they keep their distance so he doesn’t taint them with his sins.

Hell is going through the fire every day, knowing his team’s got his back because he’s Owen Strand’s son and no one wants to piss the Captain off, not after the stunt he pulled while TK was at the hospital. He doesn’t know all the details, but he’s aware of enough to comprehend that Owen Strand had stepped on some toes to keep his son’s under his control once again, because he doesn’t trust TK to be on his own. Owen doesn’t think TK has ever learned to be responsible and trustworthy, and he acts in consequence.

TK wants to yell at him that Owen had never been around to actually teach him how to be confident and responsible and _normal_.

It’s a huge step forward when he manages to regain a little bit of self-control in the form of renting an apartment in Brooklyn. Owen doesn’t really want him to move out of his fancy condo in Upper Manhattan, but TK needs it. So he stands for himself and asks for that shred of freedom that he’s granted after a lot of negotiation and tons of tears from both Owen and himself.

When he meets Alex, at twenty-three, he thinks he’s hit the jackpot with him. And when everything unwinds and he’s left to grapple at the loose strands of his ripped heart, he understands that his life prior to his second overdosed has been a trial. He gets yet another chance, he isn’t going to mess it up this time. So he moves with his father to Austin, he joins a new station, he does what he knows best.

And in the meantime, he finds a family who cares about him enough to call him out on his bullshit. A family who cares enough to help him through his worst moods. A family he would do anything for. A family who stands up for him when he falls down during a shift. A family who’s there waiting for him when he finally comes clean about his addiction and his life choices. A family who never ever backs out on him, who never doubts him, who accepts him because he’s TK. And he finds a love he never thought he’d feel — pure and unabashed, unrepentant and unwavering — a love that transcends everything he ever thought about feelings and emotions. A love he cherishes and fears he lost forever, only to find it again — and find himself — under the green lights of a sky that bears witness to his boldness in taking a hand offered and undressing his own heart.

In Austin he finds himself, and that’s good enough for him.


End file.
